Title: First Baptist Church of Madison Records
Inclusive Dates: 1833-1966

Creator:

• First Baptist Church of Madison (Wis.)

Call Number: Mss 846; PH Mss 846

Quantity: 1.0 c.f. (3 archives boxes), 3 photographs, and transparencies

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Records of a Baptist congregation organized in Madison, Wisconsin in 1847. Included are minutes (1847-1911) and correspondence (1833-1864) of Lyman C. Draper and other church clerks; records of several congregational organizations and a subject file that highlights several events in the church's history. The congregation's centennial is documented by correspondence, a printed history, a scrapbook, and a historical slide lecture. The slides document the church's buildings and its ministers as well as its service under Charles Galpin to University of Wisconsin students. An additional scrapbook documenting the year 1943-1944 contains photographs representing the congregation's focus on racial understanding. Also included are brief records of the Sun Prairie Baptist Church, 1900-1907, whose members became part of the Madison congregation.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00846

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The First Baptist Church of Madison, one of the oldest congregations in the city, dates to 1847 when preliminary meetings were held by eleven Baptist congregations in the Territory of Wisconsin. From these meetings came the organization of a Baptist society in Madison. Under the leadership of Rev. H. W. Read the congregation met in the State Capitol, the homes of its members, and the Dane County Court House. In 1853 the congregation summoned Rev. M. D. Miller and his leadership and zeal was responsible for the building of a church building on the Capitol Square in 1854. An important community center, this building was also the home of the State Historical Society until 1866.

Prior to the turn of the century the congregation was served by seventeen pastors. Their names and tenure are listed on page 36 of the centennial history of the church included in Box 3 of the collection. In 1895 the church voted to purchase a property at the corner of West Dayton and Carroll Street, and during the turbulent tenure of Henry T. Comstock the congregation constructed a new meeting house. This building was erected at a cost of $18,000, but it was used for only ten months as it burned to the ground after being struck by lightning in 1901. Under the leadership of Rev. W. G. Walker the congregation regrouped and in 1902 rebuilt on the foundations of the burned building.

In 1904 the congregation summoned Rev. Frederic Tower Galpin who developed an active program of youth participation. His brother, Charles Galpin, was appointed the congregation's University pastor--the first university pastor of any church in the country. Charles Galpin was well known for establishing “Baptist hikes” to appeal to the student population. Largely through Galpin's pioneering leadership the First Baptist Church and the Baptist State Convention assumed responsibility for ministering to Baptist students at the University. Until 1922 the work of the Baptist Students Guild was part of the First Baptist Church, but in that year the Francis Wayland Foundation purchased a headquarters building for the student organization. In 1928 the organization became known as the Wayland Club.

During the early years of the century B. B. Collyer, the Sunday School superintendent, administered the church's Sunday School, the largest Sunday School program in the city. In 1912 Dr. John L. Gillin began a popular adult Sunday School that came to be known as the Gillin Class.

In 1913 the congregation officially reorganized as the First Baptist Church of Madison and about the same time acquired a parsonage at 405 North Henry Street. It was later replaced by a parsonage at 1819 Keyes Avenue. In 1923 the congregation, which by this time had a membership of 665, celebrated its diamond anniversary. In 1932 the congregation summoned L. B. Moseley, whose twelve-year tenure was the longest of any previous minister to serve the congregation. Moseley's personality attracted a larger, more vital membership and his administrative leadership inspired a new attitude toward church finances--voluntary pledging rather than reliance on church dinners and bazaars. In 1947 the congregation, then numbering over 800, celebrated its centennial with the purchase of property on Franklin Avenue that would allow for further growth.

The records are arranged as ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS, CONGREGATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, and CHURCH HISTORY.

The ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS include clerks' minutes and correspondence. In 1901 the First Baptist Church burned to the ground and most records dating to that early period are thought to have been destroyed. In the collection from the church's early period are three books of minutes, all of which have a somewhat uncertain provenance and function. Volume 1 contains minutes of covenant meetings that were held in members' homes from 1847 through 1851. Responsibility for this book was taken over by Lyman Draper, the congregational clerk, who apparently recopied into the volume some correspondence and notes on events that took place in 1852. It is possible that this volume survived the fire because it had been turned over to the Historical Society by Draper before that time. Volume 2 appears to have begun in 1853 as a record created by Willett S. Main, the church clerk. Main may have kept the volume in his home. If so, this explains how it escaped the fire. The volume contains documentation dating from after the fire added by other clerks. The final volume was maintained by another clerk, Louis C. Haley. This volume does not appear to be, however, the Haley volume referred to in the centennial church history as the only record known to have survived the fire. This final volume contains a copy of the 1894 church manual which supplements a run of church manuals held by the Historical Society Library. (In addition, the library holds several church publications, That Magazine and Our Church Record, which predate the fire.)

Also filed here is some correspondence, 1849-1864, collected by Lyman Draper in his capacity as church clerk and deacon that deals with pastoral resignations and replacements, requests for financial support from the Home Missions Society, sale of pews in the new church building, disagreements between church members requiring congregational action, and several requests to Draper regarding Baptist publications. Also included are a report of a Dane County Committee on starting a denominational newspaper and several annual reports to the Dane Baptist Association.

Records of CONGREGATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS include incomplete minutes of the Gillin adult class; minutes of the Women's Missionary Society; and an account book documenting the Brotherhood Athletic Club, the Christian Templars, and several other groups.

CHURCH HISTORY is a chronologically-arranged subject file documenting various highlights in the congregation's history. Notable is the scrapbook apparently compiled when Rev. Moseley resigned in 1944. The photographs in the scrapbook are of interest for their allusion to the congregation's focus on racial and international understanding. About the 1923 diamond anniversary the collection contains the text of a slide lecture presented at that time and several miscellaneous transparencies from that lecture. A substantial number of these transparencies were reused in a longer lecture that was presented in 1947 for the congregation's centennial. The 1947 transparencies (only 1-57 are present, however) include interior and exterior views of the church buildings, portraits of its ministers, and pictures of the activities of Baptist students at the University while Charles Galpin served as university pastor. Also about the centennial is a scrapbook containing additional photographs, a congregational history, the text of the anniversary slide lecture, and some correspondence with former members of the church. Other photographs and transparencies in the collection document various organizations and activities. Also filed here is a minute book of the Sun Prairie Baptist Church, 1900-1907, whose members transferred to the Madison congregation.

Acquisition Information

Portions presented by the church and by O. D. Allen; additional portions placed on deposit, 1976, 1993. Accession Number: M76-045, M93-204

Processing Information

Processed by Natalie Tinkham and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1995.

Mss 846	Series: Administrative Records
	Minutes
Box   1 Folder   1	, 1847-1852 (Draper)
Box   1 Folder   2	, 1853-1911 (Main)
Box   1 Folder   3	, 1896-1904 (Haley)
Box   1 Folder   4	Correspondence, 1849-1862
Box   1 Folder   5	Letters of membership transfer, 1833-1858, undated
	Series: Congregational Organizations	⇧
	Gillin Class
Box   2 Folder   1	Records, 1933-1945
Box   2 Folder   2	Minutes, 1933-1934, 1944-1945
Box   2 Folder   3	Accounts, 1958-1966 (and historical notes)
Box   2 Folder   4	Women's Missionary Society, 1911, 1914-1927
Box   2 Folder   5	Record book of youth organizations, 1906-1908
	Series: Congregational History	⇧
Box   2 Folder   6	Elsom, J. C., Recollections of, 1894-1920
Box   2 Folder   7	Diamond anniversary, 1923
PH Mss 846	Miscellaneous transparencies [Missing]
Mss 846 Box   2 Folder   8	Scrapbook, 1943-1944
	Centennial, 1947
Box   3 Folder   1	Scrapbook
Box   3 Folder   2	Correspondence
Box   3 Folder   3	Miscellaneous programs
PH Mss 846	Transparencies for historical talk [Missing]
Mss 846 Box   3 Folder   4	Cornerstone ceremony, 1950
PH Mss 846	Miscellaneous photographs and transparencies [Transparencies are missing]
Mss 846 Box   3 Folder   5	Sun Prairie Baptist Church minutes, 1900-1907